


the warmth of your doorways

by redbelles



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Idiots in Love, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbelles/pseuds/redbelles
Summary: She’s learned so much—anatomy, botany, chemistry—and there’s still so much more here for her to discover. Perhaps it should be daunting, this vast storehouse of knowledge, but after years of famine, all she can do is marvel at the feast before her.Her enthusiasm makes Vlad smile. It’s always faint, a bare flicker of emotion, but she sees it more often than she thinks he knows. She marvels at science, and he marvels at her.
Relationships: Dracula/Lisa (Castlevania)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 74
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	the warmth of your doorways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Largishcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Largishcat/gifts).



As it has for months, the soft drag of velvet against skin pulls her out of dreamless sleep. Lisa blinks in the pale dawn light, stuck once again by how little she misses her dreams. 

It makes sense, she supposes: her life in the Țepeș fortress is beyond anything even her wildest dreams could have conjured. She spends her days ensconced in the castle’s vast libraries or holed away in one of the many labs, lit by the small captive suns that so fascinated her when she first arrived. 

_Electricity_ , she knows now. She’s learned so much—anatomy, botany, chemistry—and there’s still so much more here for her to discover. Perhaps it should be daunting, this vast storehouse of knowledge, but after years of famine, all she can do is marvel at the feast before her.

Her enthusiasm makes Vlad smile. It’s always faint, a bare flicker of emotion, but she sees it more often than she thinks he knows. She marvels at science, and he marvels at her. 

She bites down on a grin of her own, helplessly pleased. Butterflies swoop through her stomach at the memory of his expression, incongruously gentle on such a stern face. It softens every harsh edge, turning him from rude and cold to something painfully alluring. 

_Stop swooning_ , she tells herself firmly. _You’re here to learn, not lose your head over your host._

It’s a useless warning. If there’s one thing she knew before she knocked on the castle door, it was that when she sets her heart on something, there’s no turning back. She sighs, hauling herself out of bed and wrestling with her hair until it falls in a smooth plait down her back, ready to hunt down some food. 

A dilemma like this one calls for breakfast at the very least.

...

She’s still mulling things over when he finds her in the westernmost lab, tinkering with saline solutions and scribbling away in her notebook. That’s another thing he smiles at, her terrible chicken-scratch handwriting. She really needs to stop finding those smiles so endearing.

“Lisa,” he says from the threshold, voice low and warm and only the slightest bit disappointed. Months ago, she wouldn’t have noticed. Now, that single word pulls her away from her work like nothing else in the world ever has. She closes her notes with a sharp motion, shutting down the urge to puzzle out every hidden intricacy that makes up the man before her. 

That’s not what she’s here for. She’s here to learn, not break her own heart.

“Yes?” She aims for crisp and light but lands somewhere near eager instead.

“You weren’t at breakfast.”

“I was going to grab something from the kitchens, but I had an idea about—”

“—the application of salts in oils and tinctures. Coming along quite nicely, it would seem.”

Before she can even finish blushing, he’s crossed from the doorway to her side, a plate of fresh fruit and delicate pastries in hand. He sets it down before her with careless grace, and her eyes snag on the length of his fingers, the wide span of his palm. 

The pallor of his skin.

She’s not blind; she’s a scientist. She notices things. His size, his strength. The uncanny silence as he moves, the palpable weight of his presence in a room. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up whenever he’s near, and it’s not because she finds him handsome. Well, not _just_ because of that.

Tall, swift, possessed of wealth and knowledge beyond the imagining of any mortal man, walled up like a hermit in a castle of wonders…

Peasant superstition isn’t often right, but sometimes, where there’s smoke there’s fire. 

Vlad Dracula Țepeș is a man, to be sure, but that’s not all he is. Thus, the dilemma.

She reaches for a summer apple, pink and deeply fragrant despite the snowstorm raging outside. The fruit he offers is always in season. There’s a myth about that, Lisa thinks ruefully, but that doesn’t stop her from biting into it. 

_I want to stay. But…_

She’s a decisive person; this wishy-washy nonsense isn’t like her. She’s had her heart set on her work for as long as she can remember. There shouldn’t be any question about what she’ll do when she’s finished her studies, insomuch as one can ever truly be done learning. She’ll leave the castle, leave Vlad, and go about her life. 

She’ll help poor women in poor villages, birth babies and care for the sick and the elderly. She’ll go to bed each night alone because she’s not likely to find another man in Wallachia who will tolerate—let alone facilitate—her work, but it will be worth it. 

It will be worth it, and sometimes Vlad may look at her like she’s something rare and precious, but he’s made no move to act on those looks. He holds himself apart, as guarded and lonely as his fortress. And even if he didn’t… well, he is what he is. Old, older than she can truly fathom. _Immortal_ ; whether she looks at it through the lens of fact or superstition, that’s the only answer that makes sense. He may like her, but she’s a distraction at best. Temporary. A fleeting break in the monotony of a long, solitary existence.

And yet…

Here he is, seeking her out, caring for her. It’s a struggle not to lean into him when he sits down next to her, large and warm and so deeply invested in her work. Lisa takes slow bites of the apple as they discuss her progress, savoring his nearness and the bright sweet taste of summer. 

Eventually, the fruit and pastries are gone. Vlad bids her farewell and vanishes to some other part of the castle. When she’s sure he’s far enough away that he won’t hear it, she lets her head thunk down on the table. 

The gleaming hardwood has no answers for her, so she wallows in pity for a moment or two, then straightens up and gets back to her experiments.

...

Weeks pass, bleeding into months as winter tightens its grip on the countryside. Snows fall heavy and deep outside. They share glasses of wine as the year turns, sitting together before a fire in a well-worn study, homier than any other room in the castle.

His personal study, she thinks, and tries not to let the intimacy of their surroundings go to her head.

 _Tell me I’m right_ , she wants to say, words clamoring in her throat each time she looks at him. _Tell me I’m more than just a diversion, something amusing to marvel at. Tell me you don’t want me to go._

Instead, they discuss her work. Hours stretch out like honey, slow and golden as flames lick at the grate. The conversation turns to other matters; philosophy, theology, the growing influence of the church. 

“You don’t truly believe that Târgoviște will allow cunning women to continue practicing in Wallachia, do you?”

She gestures with her glass, made bold by good wine and months of carefully hidden disappointment. 

“They’ll have to,” she says. “Who else is out there helping the poor and the vulnerable? Priests?” Lisa snorts. “Not bloody likely. Besides, I’m no cunning woman. I deal with science, not superstition.”

“True enough,” he says, but the rough velvet of his voice is carefully, deliberately even. “But I doubt that will matter to such men.”

Disappointment flares into anger in her chest, abrupt and bitter. “Well someone has to help,” she snaps. “I have the knowledge and the skills. Why shouldn’t that someone be me?”

“Lisa—”

Her hands are shaking. She grips the goblet until her knuckles are white with strain, trying to reign in her frustration, trying to salvage something from the wreck of such a lovely night. It’s no use; the words spill out of her before she can stop them. 

“You know how much I care about my studies. How hard I work. Do you think I’ll just— sit back and let people suffer because some pompous asses in the capital think I’m a witch? Do you truly believe I’m capable of it?”

To her shame, tears are sliding down her cheeks. She sets the wineglass down; clearly, she’s had far too much to drink. She brushes the tears away and smoothes her skirts, determined to leave with at least some of her dignity intact, but a gentle touch stops her in her tracks. His hand on her shoulder, not restraining, but— pleading? Through the wine-soaked fog of emotion, it feels like the first time he’s ever touched her. 

“No,” he says. “I don’t believe that at all, and that is why I worry.”

“You worry?”

Slow as the spring thaw, he traces a path from her shoulder to her cheek, soft and devastatingly tender. 

“Lisa.” That same tenderness is present in his voice. “Of course I worry. I see your determination, your compassion, your fierce sense of justice. Humanity is brutal and vicious and rotten down to the bone, but you don’t see it like that. You demand better.” 

Vlad strokes his thumb across her cheekbone, a universe of things unsaid in every delicate sweep. She’s dreaming; she has to be dreaming. Still: she trembles, leaning into the touch. He keeps going. 

“You’ll help anyone who needs it and damn the consequences. You’d burn yourself to ash to keep the world warm.”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment,” she says shakily.

“I wish it weren’t,” he replies. “So much would be easier if it weren’t.” 

Her breath catches in her lungs. She feels like she’s standing on the edge of a precipe, waiting to see if she’ll fall. 

“What would make it easier?”

He draws in a slow breath. The moment stretches out, longer and longer, a desperate kind of hope singing through her veins, and then—

Vlad pulls away. “It’s late,” he says. “Goodnight, Lisa of Lupu.”

More tears come as she treks back to her room, the castle dark and silent around her. She undresses with stiff, bewildered motions and crawls beneath her soft sheets and velvet coverlet, trying not to remember the sound of his voice or the feel of his hand on her skin. 

_Goodnight, Lisa of Lupu._

She falls asleep weary and aching, sure in her bones that what he really meant was goodbye.

...

Dawn breaks. The morning is soft, gray, velvet as it always is. No dreams, just memories: wine, worry, his hand on her cheek. A silent farewell ringing like a struck bell between them.

She skips breakfast, not because her head hurts or she’s sick from all the wine, but because she’s angry again. If she sees him, she’ll do something stupid, like yell at him, or kiss him. Beg him to touch her again, because apparently, barging into his house and demanding he share the secrets of the universe with her wasn’t enough; she wants all of him, not just his knowledge. 

_Ridiculous_ , she chides. _Greedy, too._

She marches down into the lab and throws herself into her work. Hours pass, and though her stomach rumbles, Vlad does not appear with food and concern. Lisa works until long after the winter sun has sunk below the horizon and the bright sizzle of the electric lamps makes her eyes water and burn, and then she packs away her tools and notes and trudges toward the kitchens. Thick slices of bread, a hunk of cheese, and a cup of watered ale; she takes her feast to a secluded corner of the lower library, smaller than the others and filled mostly with religious texts. There’s a fair chance he won’t look for her here. 

She devours her dinner then slumps back in her chair, staring morosely at some collection of ecclesiastical proclamations, dry as dust and not half as useful. Vlad still hasn’t come to her. 

_Damn the church_ , she thinks angrily, but it’s a hollow sentiment. The church isn’t the issue. The issue is that she’s spent months pining for a man who looked at her with the world in his eyes last night, who stroked her cheek with a lover’s touch, who pulled away like the leaving hurt him, yet here she is, moping like an idiot.

‘You demand better,’ he said last night. She does; she will.

...

Half the castle later, she finally tracks him down. He’s in his study, right where she left him, staring into the ashes of the long-dead fire. Clearly, they’re both a touch melodramatic.

“Vlad,” she says, voice admirably steady.

Surely he heard her coming, but he stands to greet her as if he’s only just noticed her. 

“Lisa.”

“I asked you a question last night.”

“So you did.”

“So answer me. Tell me what would make it easier. Tell me I’m not in this alone.”

He stares at her for a long moment, weighing his words. Goosebumps rise at the nape of her neck as she waits.

“It would be easier,” he says, “if you were afraid of me. If you knew what I truly am.” 

“I know—”

“If you knew,” he says. “And if you stayed. But if you knew, if you stayed anyway, you would not be who you are. I have lived through many things, but I could not live with that. I treasure you just as you are, Lisa; I would not see that change.”

 _Tell me you don’t want me to go._

Somehow, this means more.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to cross the room and kiss him. She has to stretch up on her toes to do it, but it’s alright. He bends to meet her, and his hands are there, warm and firm against her back, steadying her even as his mouth is desperate and hungry against her own.

The kiss lasts a lifetime; she falls into it, drowning in the sensation of his skin against hers, the heat of his breath, the sharp-sweet prick of his fangs as they move together. She wants it to last forever.

 _It will_ , she tells herself, dizzy and grinning as they finally break apart.

“I know what you are,” she says, “and I know who I am. We’re fools. We could have been doing this for months.”

His hand strokes up and down her back, slipping beneath the heavy fall of her plait to cup the nape of her neck. She feels delicate and deeply, brilliantly powerful.

“Is that so?” 

“Mmm,” she replies, leaning into his touch. 

“I am… old. Set in my ways. The castle hasn’t moved in centuries, yet the common folk still whisper my name like a curse.”

“They curse cunning women too, Vlad.”

“All the more reason to stay away from me, to leave and never look back. You’ll be in enough danger as it is without my shadow to add to it.”

“So come with me. Keep me safe from whatever you think will harm me, just— be with me.”

He stares at her for another long moment, eyes dark and fathomless. Weighing her words, judging her truth.

 _I ate your damn fruit_ , she thinks. _I’m here. Be with me._

His mouth quirks in a faint smile, soft and familiar, and then he’s swaying into her, or drawing her to him, pulling her into a kiss that is dark and rich and sweet, a promise of more to come. 

“Very well,” he says. The world rushes and blurs around them, the study fading into the familiar lines of her room. She falls back into the soft velvet of her bed, stares at the hidden joy painted across his face in the dim wash of lamplight, and surrenders herself to what her heart has longed for.

It's not a dream; it's better.

...

When she finally leaves the castle, travelling cloak on her shoulders and her bag packed with carefully brewed elixirs and handwritten medical notes, she is not alone on her journey. 

**Author's Note:**

> happy yuletide, largishcat!
> 
> listen, i love them, but my god!!!! vlad is a goddamn drama queen and lisa (bless her) is smart as hell but equally ridiculous, so i wanted to explore what the initial stages of their relationship looked like. i had a ton of fun writing it, and i hope it's something you can enjoy :)
> 
> title from "it will come back" by hozier


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